


light under water

by rukafais



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, but she does anyway, i love moth grandma, she deserves the world, she doesnt need to help the knight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 04:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16569326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: (ANCIENT ENEMY) She will not do as her goddess does, and blame them for a nature they cannot control. (DEVOURER OF DREAMS)Nobody can choose how they are born into this world.The empty child (KILL IT) lies there, still asleep.





	light under water

It breathes when it has no reason to. It is not a living thing. It is a construct, an empty shell, made for a purpose and found wanting. Discarded twice; first by its creator and second by those sealed sleepers, condemned to break and fade away.

It is anathema to her, to her nature, to what she has become. It could consume her in an instant.

She doesn’t quite know why she rescued it.

_(It follows her in a desperate scramble, stumbling through its new prison.)_

She doesn’t know why she gave it such a gift.

_(Take it, she says, cut your way out of this sad dream, or else fade - and it chooses to live without hesitation.)_

Radiance sings loud and furious in her head, a cry for death and violence _(KILL IT KILL THE EMPTY ONE KILL IT NOW)_

She reaches out to inspect it more closely; this small thing, this empty being. Wondering if there is anything inside, if there was anything there to begin with.

She touches a horn and freezes as it flinches away from her, hiding its masked face. Even in its sleep, it is unsettled by old fear, alert to danger.

The old moth keeps her hand outstretched. Sensing no immediate retribution, it sleepily uncurls; it gently turns its head to soak up that scant contact.

She cannot destroy it; it would not be breaking a tool. It would be taking a life.

It would be murdering a child.

_(Her goddess screams and for the first time in her life, she denies her.)_

Ignorant to the clamour in the Seer’s thoughts, the little shadow rests, content and undisturbed. They slumber silently at her feet.

Slowly, she withdraws her hand, and lets them sleep in peace.

 

* * *

 

She hears her less, now. Despite being surrounded by the signs of her presence, that light does not shine harshly upon her dreams and her mind as it used to.

For the first time, she thinks _if it must be so, then that is how it is._

The Wielder approaches, and she can sense the dreams they’ve gathered. The memories of a fallen kingdom cling to them like the Weavers’ silk; they drag it behind them like a train, a burden they’re unused to.

“Come, Wielder,” she says, in a voice cracking and quiet from disuse. “Show me what you’ve learned.”

They come forward, presenting the talisman to her. The blade is still dull, but there is potential in it, and in them. Waiting to be forged.

_A voice, a blade, someone else’s regrets._ The memory echoes back at her.

The Wielder _(the child)_ bows their head, remembering the burden.

 

* * *

 

They come back to visit her, again and again. For little trinkets and little stories, and for bigger things too (they are a fast learner, to collect so much in so little time).

Sometimes, they come just to sit with her, to rest. In her failing vision, they shine more and more, and so too does the blade they wield. Taking on the kingdom’s memories, its regrets, the wishes and dreams of its inhabitants.

“You’re doing very well for someone who just learned how,” she notes. “Normally, Wielder, this would take years of training.”

They seem to puff up a little, in response. Proud of being complimented, of having something acknowledged. Happy to have her approval.

It reminds her of old days, when she, too, was young and proud and attempting to live up to the goals that others, older and wiser, had set. _(The little vessel that stands before her is impossibly old and yet still a child. Will they ever grow old, as she has? Did they ever get to be young, as she was?_

_Someone’s voice, the touch of their hands on hers, the smooth texture of a hilt pressing into her palms “One day, you will inherit this, and become the Wielder of our tribe,” they say, with an audible glow of pride. “You have shown great potential for it.”_

_She bows her head, an acknowledgment of sacred duty-)_

Lost in her own thoughts, she blinks and shakes her head and finds that the Wielder is seated before her, head drooping. Sleeping, once again.

“It’s tiring work, isn’t it?” she says, with the memory of that selfsame work, those quests and pilgrimages, in mind. She draws them close under her cloak, and they stir but they do not protest.

They nestle close, drowsily.

_(Trusting, far too trusting for what they are, what they were meant to be; the distant voice of her goddess screams out for their death._

_It would be so easy._  
  
_It would be the easiest thing in the world to take the weapon they have brought her, cast them out and leave them to fade; they would never wake from their endless, final sleep, a shadow erased without thought_.)

She laughs, creakily, almost surprised to hear it escape from her, and casts away that thought.

At some point they stir; they jolt to attention, woken by some noise or nightmare - they shake with half-remembered fear -

“Rest now,” she tells them, her voice low and soft, and it reminds her of long ago days when this place was full of life and laughter, where children woke from nightmares and she soothed them just the same, “you are safe here.”

-they settle again, still trembling. It eases, and then stops, as they slip back into sleep.

She passes her hand over their mask as if to close eyes they don’t have; she rests it near them, as she did time and time again for children she raised and cared for.

_(So small, but so powerful; so full of potential. So feared by the goddess she once wholly loved and followed without question and believed in._

_But Radiance has grown hot and harsh and wounding, a light that burns and strips away everything someone could be. From the memories she carries of those who came before, she knows that long before she was sealed away, she demanded their worship, their adoration, their minds and hearts._

_She accepted nothing less than total devotion and total sacrifice. Glorious and awe-inspiring and - terrifying, in truth._

_The warmth of her light is nothing but a long ago memory.)_

The child slumbers beneath her cloak and holds firmly to her hand. They cling to it like a lifeline, and her heart aches for them.

She had wondered if they were ever allowed to be a child. She thinks, by the way they seek out affection like they are starved for it, she knows the answer.

So she keeps her hand there, and lets them sleep in peace.


End file.
